li158 Linguistic Insights

Studies in Language and Communication

Bárbara Eizaga Rebollar (ed.)

Studies in
Linguistics
and Cognition
Peter Lang
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1. Linguistics. 2. Cognition. 3. Semantics. I. Eizaga Rebollar, Bárbara
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .............................................................................. 7

BÁRBARA EIZAGA REBOLLAR, JOSÉ MARÍA GARCÍA NÚÑEZ,

MARÍA ÁNGELES ZARCO TEJADA
Preface .................................................................................................. 9

Section 1: The Lexicon and Cognition

MARÍA TADEA DÍAZ HORMIGO AND CARMEN VARO VARO

Neology and Cognition ....................................................................... 15

GÉRARD FERNÁNDEZ SMITH, MARTA SÁNCHEZ-SAUS LASERNA

AND LUIS ESCORIZA MORERA
Studies on Lexical Availability: The Current Situation
and Some Future Prospects ................................................................. 35

MARÍA LUISA MORA MILLÁN

Adverbs in the Internet Lexicon: New Modes of Signification .......... 57

MARÍA ÁNGELES ZARCO TEJADA

‘Holding’ Metaphorical Meaning from a Computational Linguistics
Approach: The Verb Hold and its Counterparts in Spanish ............... 81
Section 2: Semantics and Cognition

JOSÉ MARÍA GARCÍA NÚÑEZ

Attitude Verbs and Nominalization .................................................. 107

CARMEN NOYA GALLARDO

Cleft Sentences:
Semantic Properties and Communicative Meanings ........................ 133

FRANCISCO J. RUIZ DE MENDOZA IBÁÑEZ

AND ALICIA GALERA MASEGOSA
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes
in Phrasal Verb Interpretation: Metaphoric Chains .......................... 153

Section 3: Communication and Cognition

BÁRBARA EIZAGA REBOLLAR

Meaning Adjustment Processes in Idiom Variants ........................... 185

JOSÉ LUIS GUIJARRO MORALES

Beauty and Art in Science ................................................................ 213

ANA ISABEL RODRÍGUEZ-PIÑERO ALCALÁ

AND MARÍA GARCÍA ANTUÑA
Specialised Communication and Language Teaching
for Specific Purposes ........................................................................ 245

FRANCISCO YUS RAMOS

Strategies and Effects in Humorous Discourse: The Case of Jokes ...... 271

Notes on Contributors ....................................................................... 297

FRANCISCO J. RUIZ DE MENDOZA IBÁÑEZ1
& ALICIA GALERA MASEGOSA2

Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal

Verb Interpretation: Metaphoric Chains3

1. Introduction

This chapter is concerned with the study of the patterns that underlie
the interpretation of phrasal verbs in terms of complex cognitive op-
erations based on metaphor, metonymy, and the several ways in which
these two cognitive processes may interact. Phrasal verbs are consid-
ered to be a special category of idiomatic expression4, in the sense that
the overall meaning of the expression exceeds the sum of the mean-
ings of its parts. In this respect, Dirven (2001) claims that the preposi-
tion or particle contributes a special constructional value to the mean-
ing of phrasal verbs, thus acknowledging that the addition of a particle
to a verb conveys a certain degree of idiomaticity. Similar considera-
tions are put forward by Hampe (2000), who claims that verb-particle
constructions usually motivate the use of underlying conceptual meta-
phors in their interpretation.

1 <[email protected]>.
2 <[email protected]>.
3 This chapter is associated with Project No. FFI2010-17610, Ministry of Sci-
ence and Innovation, Spain, and the Center for Research in the Applications of
Language (CRAL), University of La Rioja.
4 Phrasal verbs resemble idiomatic expressions in that both of them are multi-
word units made up of two or more lexical items. Some authors consider
phrasal verbs (as well as idiomatic compounds and proverbs) to belong to the
group of composite idiomatic constructions (Langlotz 2006). In fact, phrasal
verbs have been analyzed as part of the larger category of idioms (Makkai
1972; Kuiper/Everaert 2004).
154 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

As regards idiomatic expressions, there has been much discus-

sion with the aim of setting up a unified characterization and defini-
tion that accounts for their special condition. However, there are con-
flicting opinions. For example, some linguists claim that idioms are
fixed strings of two or more words where the meaning of the whole
can never be inferred from the meanings of its parts (Bobrow/Bell
1973; Swinney/Cutler 1979; Schweigert/Moates 1988, among others),
while others argue that the meaning of the words that make up an
idiomatic expression are essential for their interpretation (Benczes
2002; Cacciari/Glucksberg 1991, 1994; Fillmore et al. 1988; Gibbs
1990, 1994, 1998; Gibbs/Nayak 1989; Gibbs/Van Orden 2003;
Glucksberg 1991, 2001; Glucksberg et al. 1993; Keysar et al. 2000;
Lakoff 1987; Lakoff/Johnson 1999; Langlotz 2006). We take sides
with the view of idioms that advocates for the existence of a contin-
uum that groups idiomatic expressions according to their degree of
fixation and predictability (Langlotz 2006; Galera 2010a). Thus, we
may find idioms that range from those that should be handled as
whole indivisible units, i.e. which cannot be either decomposed or
analyzed by taking into account the meanings of their parts (e.g. kick
the bucket), to those in which the parts trigger the necessary cognitive
operations that lead us to an overall interpretation (e.g. to have a frog
in one’s throat). We may thus assume that an analogous continuum
may be extended to the taxonomy of phrasal verbs. However, our
study of phrasal verbs suggests that their degree of analyzability in
terms of cognitive operations is higher than expected. The explanation
may be related to the fact that phrasal verbs, which are combinations
of a verb and one or more adverbs or prepositions, differ from idio-
matic expressions based on situations in that the former generally
convey topological values (up/down, in/out, back/forward, etc) while
the latter do not. These topological values are likely to activate cogni-
tive mechanisms and invoke mental schemas and configurations that
modify the literal meaning of the verb they combine with (cf. Hampe
2000). Consider example (1) below:

(1) a. I fed the cat this morning.

b. I’m fed up with the cat this morning.
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 155

The verb feed (give food to) is used literally in (1a) and metaphorically
(exasperated) in (1b). A rather superficial analysis would naïvely state
that fed up should be processed as a unit whose meaning is upset or ex-
asperated. In our view, a more refined account, based on a more sophis-
ticated set of analytical tools, is needed. A fine-grained analysis consists
in enumerating and explaining the consecutive cognitive mechanisms
that get activated in the interpretation of this expression. The pattern that
underlies the interpretation of (1b), whose basic layout is the concatena-
tion (with no integration) of two metaphors, will be referred to as meta-
phoric chain, and will be addressed in detail in Section 3.
Interaction between metaphors is a phenomenon that has re-
cently received attention from the proponents of the Lexical Construc-
tional Model or LCM (Ruiz de Mendoza/Mairal 2008; Mairal/Ruiz de
Mendoza 2009). The LCM is a usage-based meaning construction
account of language that stipulates the existence of comparable mean-
ing processes at various levels of linguistic description. For example,
the LCM has postulated the existence of metonymic activity not only
at the lexical level but also as underlying pragmatic and discourse
inferencing (cf. Mairal/Ruiz de Mendoza 2009). At the core of the
architecture of the LCM, we find the notions of lexical and construc-
tional templates. The former contain rich semantic specifications,
which capture much of the knowledge of the world and link it explic-
itly to argument structure variables. The latter are higher-level charac-
terizations that are operational at the argument structure, pragmatic
and discourse levels. Lexical and constructional configurations, which
belong to different descriptive levels, are fused in a principled process,
called subsumption, which is regulated by sets of constraints. Among
such constraints metaphor and metonymy play a particularly important
role. For example, the subsumption process between the verb laugh
and the argument-structure caused-motion construction (as first postu-
lated by Goldberg 1995) is possible on the basis of a metaphor
whereby we can see one kind of action in terms of another kind of
action. Thus, in The audience laughed the actor off the stage, we see
the action of laughing, which has no physical impact on its object, as
if it were an effectual action, i.e. one that does have that kind of im-
pact. The metaphoric activity acts as a licensing factor for the integra-
tion of the verb laugh into the caused-motion construction. In later
156 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

developments of the LCM (Ruiz de Mendoza/Mairal 2011), some lexi-

cal-constructional integration processes have been observed to require
the combination of two metaphors in various ways, which will be dis-
cussed below. We have additionally identified other patterns of meta-
phoric interaction that do not regulate level-external lexical-construc-
tional subsumption, but rather license the interaction of level-internal
representations of a lexical nature. This is the case of phrasal verbs,
which will be our object of study, and which will allow us to further
refine the work on conceptual interaction carried out so far within CL.
The rest of the present chapter is structured as follows: in Sec-
tion 2 we outline the main theoretical approaches that have paved the
way for the development of our study. We provide an overview of
those accounts of metaphor and metonymy and the interactions be-
tween them that are especially relevant for our study, especially the
proposals in Ruiz de Mendoza (1997), Ruiz de Mendoza/Díez (2002)
and Ruiz de Mendoza/Mairal (2011), and we relate them to the analy-
sis of idiomatic expressions (Kövecses/Zsabó 1996; Langlotz 2006;
Galera 2010a). Section 3 presents a detailed analysis of a group of
phrasal5 verbs that can only be interpreted by means of complex cog-
nitive operations. We advocate that the term metaphoric chain should
be reserved to identify a special type of metaphoric complex that is
particularly frequent in phrasal verb interpretation rather than just any
combination of metaphorical mappings, as initially done in Ruiz de
Mendoza (2008). We propose three different types of metaphoric
complex: metaphoric amalgams, metaphtonymy and metaphoric
chains. We reserve the term ‘metaphtonymy’ to refer to the interaction
between metaphor and metonymy, as initially put forward in Goossens
(1990) and refined in Ruiz de Mendoza (1997) and Ruiz de Men-
doza/Díez (2002). Metaphoric amalgams are different from meta-
phoric chains in that the former involve the integration of the internal
configuration of two or more metaphors while the latter are made up
of two consecutive metaphorical mappings where the target domain of
the first mapping constitutes the source domain of the next. Neverthe-
less, the integration of metonymy within the layout of these patterns

5 Examples of phrasal verbs have been drawn from the British National Corpus
(BNC).
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 157

will be essential in many cases. Section 4 provides a special case of

conceptual interaction in which metaphtonymy and metaphoric amal-
gams combine. Section 5 summarizes the main findings of this study.

2. Theoretical background

The emergence of Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has shifted the view of

metaphor and metonymy from treating them as mere aesthetic devices
to regarding them as powerful conceptualizing tools. This new approach
to language arose from the development of Lakoff and Johnson’s
(1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) later relabeled the Con-
temporary Theory of Metaphor (CTM) (Lakoff 1987, 1993). This the-
ory has undergone a number of revisions and refinements, some by
Lakoff himself and his co-authors (e.g. Lakoff/Turner 1989; La-
koff/Johnson 1999) and others by scholars such as Barcelona (2000,
2005), Gibbs (1994), Gibbs/Steen (1999), Kövecses (1996, 2000, 2002,
2005), Fauconnier/Turner (1994, 1998, 2002), Steen (2007) and Ruiz de
Mendoza and his collaborators (e.g. Ruiz de Mendoza 1997, 1999,
2008; Ruiz de Mendoza/Díez 2002; Ruiz de Mendoza/Otal 2002; Ruiz
de Mendoza/Mairal 2007; Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez 2011). Most meta-
phor theorists working within CL have emphasized the role of metaphor
as a pervasive conceptual mechanism, i.e. an important organizing fac-
tor in language and thought, and have looked for metaphorical activity
in many discourse domains and thematic fields. A similar situation
holds for metonymy, which has been considered a ubiquitous phenome-
non (Barcelona 2005), and has been found to play an important role not
only at the lexical level, but also in such domains as illocutionary activ-
ity (Panther/Thornburg 1998; Pérez/Ruiz de Mendoza 2002; Panther
2005) and grammar (Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez 2001; Brdar 2007).
Despite the impressive amount of research in metaphor and me-
tonymy from a CL perspective, there are still some challenges to be
met (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez 2011). One is the enquiry into the
different ways in which metaphor and metonymy may interact with
158 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

each other and also with other metaphors and metonymies respec-
tively. Goossens (1990) provided preliminary work on metaphor-
metonymy interaction, which was later refined and expanded into a
fully-fledged system by Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez (2002). In the case
of metonymy in interaction with other metonymies, there is prelimi-
nary work on so-called double metonymies in Ruiz de Mendoza
(2000) and Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez (2001). In turn, the interaction
between two or more metaphors has also been explored initially in
Ruiz de Mendoza (2008) and studied in some more detail in Ruiz de
Mendoza/Mairal (2011). In the present chapter, we will refer to any
combination of metaphors and of metaphor with metonymy by the
label metaphoric complex, to be contrasted with the label metonymic
complex, which applies to combinations of metonymies, as is the case
of AUTHOR FOR WORK FOR MEDIUM in Shakeapeare is on the top shelf
(cf. Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez 2001). In the following subsections we
shall give an overview of previous work on the two kinds of meta-
phoric complex that have been explored so far.

2.1. Metaphor and metonymy in interaction

As mentioned above, the first study of metaphor and metonymy in

interaction is found in Goossens (1990). Later, this proposal was re-
vised in Ruiz de Mendoza (1997) and Ruiz de Mendoza/Díez (2002),
who put forward the following patterns of interaction:

(i) Metonymic expansion of a metaphoric source. Consider the ex-

pression to beat one’s breast, which maps a scenario where some-
one ostensively beats his breast to make an open show of guilt and
sorrow onto a real situation where someone makes his sorrow ap-
parent to other people whether by beating his breast or not. The
metaphoric source is obtained through a metonymic mapping from
the breast-beating action to the more complex scenario here de-
scribed together with all of its implications (the possible hypocrisy
of the breast beater, the unnecessariness of showing sorrow, etc.).
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 159

Source Metaphor Target

Scenario in which someone Real situation in

openly shows his/her guilt and sorrow which a person makes
his/her sorrow apparent
Metonymy in an ostensive way

Someone beating
his/her breast

Fig. 1. Metonymic expansion of the metaphoric source in ‘To beat one’s breast’.

(ii) Metonymic expansion of a metaphoric target, as in to knit one’s

brows. The source domain of the metaphor contains a person
who is knitting articles of clothing. This situation is mapped
onto another where a person puts his eyebrows closely together,
which is metonymically expanded onto a more complex situa-
tion in which a person frowns as a sign of anger.
Source Metaphor Target

A person knits A person puts his/her

articles of clothing eyes closely together

Metonymy

Situation in which a person

frowns as a sign of anger

Fig. 2. Metonymic expansion of the metaphoric target in ‘To knit one’s brows’.

(iii) Metonymic expansion of one of the correspondences of the

target domain of a metaphor: ‘to catch someone’s ear’. Here,
there is a metaphoric correspondence between catching an ob-
ject a nd attracting someone’s attention. The notion of ‘atten-
tion’ is obtained through metonymic expansion of the concept
of ‘ear’ (our ears stand for our ability to hear, which stands for
our desire to pay attention).
160 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

Source Metaphor Target

To catch To get

someone’s ear Someone’s

ability to hear

Metonymy

Someone’s attention

Fig. 3. Metonymic expansion of one of the correspondences of the target domain of

the metaphor in ‘To catch someone’s ear’.

(iv) Metonymic expansion of one of the correspondences of the

source domain. In the expression ‘to bite the hand that feeds
you’, ‘biting’ in the source domain is metaphorically mapped
onto doing harm, and ‘feeding’ onto doing something to your
benefit. In order to fully interpret the expression, the language
user expands metonymically the source hand, which stands for
a person (PART FOR WHOLE metonymy).
Source Metaphor Target

To bite To do harm
To feed To do sth. to sb’s benefit

Person Person

Metonymy

Hand

Fig. 4. Metonymic expansion of one of the correspondences of the source domain in

the metaphor ‘To bite the hand that feeds you’.

(v) Metonymic reduction of a metaphoric source: ‘Humboldt is the

Shakespeare of travelers’. This example, borrowed from Brdar
(2007: 111), is a case of paragon (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza 2011). In
the metaphor the source contains features that relate to Shake-
speare in his role as the best of playwrights. Shakespeare stands
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 161

for such features, which are mapped onto Humboldt in the do-
main of traveling implicating that Humboldt was as ingenious in
this domain as Shakespeare was in the domain of writing.

Source Metaphor Target

Shakespeare as ideal Humboldt as ideal

poetry writer traveller

Metonymy

Superior skills Superior skills

in writing in travelling
Writing poetry Travelling
Goals as a poet Goals as a traveller

Fig. 5. Metonymic reduction of the metaphoric source in ‘Humboldt is the Shakes-

peare of travelers’.

(vi) Metonymic reduction of one of the correspondences of the tar-

get domain of a metaphor, as in to win someone’s heart. In the
metaphoric source of this expression we have a winner and a
prize, which are mapped onto a lover and the loved one’s heart.
The heart, in its turn, metonymically stands for the love meta-
phorically contained in it.
Source Metaphor Target

Winner Lover
Winning Obtaining

Prize Someone’s heart

Metonymy

Love

Fig. 6. Metonymic reduction of one of the correspondences of the target domain of a

metaphor in ‘To win someone’s heart’.
162 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

These patterns of interaction have been explored and further devel-

oped in Galera (2010b), in which the analysis of the cognitive mecha-
nisms that underlie the interpretation of proverbs and sayings both in
English and Spanish reveals a wide variety of ways in which metaphor
and metonymy may interact. In addition, recent studies have acknowl-
edged the existence of these patterns in relation to multimodal meta-
phors (cf. Hidalgo/Kraljevic 2011; Urios-Aparisi 2009).

2.2. Metaphoric amalgams

Close attention needs also to be paid to the phenomenon of meta-

phoric amalgams, which arise from the principled integration of two
metaphors into one single conceptual construct. According to the pro-
posal in Ruiz de Mendoza/Mairal (2011), which develops preliminary
ideas in Ruiz de Mendoza (2008), there are two kinds of such meta-
phoric combinations. In the first kind of metaphoric amalgam, a meta-
phor is built into the source-target structure of another metaphor. A
case in point is the expression She got the idea across to me, in which
the metaphor UNDERSTANDING AN IDEA IS PERCEPTUALLY EXPLORING
AN OBJECT is integrated into the metaphor IDEAS ARE (MOVING) OB-
JECTS. The incorporation of the second metaphor is what gives access
to a satisfactory interpretation of the sentence.

SOURCE å TARGET
Causer of motion Communicator
Causing motion Communicating
Object of caused-motion (moving object) Idea
Destination of motion (receiver of the Addressee
moving object)
Receiving the moving object Having access to the idea
Perceptually exploring the object Understanding the idea
Fig. 7. Single-source low-level metaphoric amalgam in ‘She got the idea across to me’.

The same pattern underlies the interpretation of the sentence He

traced my symptoms back to the cause of my disease. The two meta-
phors that combine in this case are A DISEASE IS A MOVING OBJECT +
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 163

RETRACING A MOVING OBJECT IS EXPLAINING THE CAUSE OF A DIS-

EASE. The basic layout of the metaphor A DISEASE IS A MOVING OB-
JECT, which allows the conceptualization of a disease as physical mo-
tion along a path, is enriched by the integration of a second (related)
metaphor that further specifies the conditions under which motion
takes place (the moving object leaves a trace that can be tracked down
by an external observer in order to identify the origin of motion).

SOURCE å TARGET
Moving object Disease
Motion of object Progress of disease
Source of motion Cause of disease
Destination of motion Outcome of disease
Observer of motion of object Monitor of progress of disease
(tracer) (e.g. physician)
Traces left by moving object Symptoms of disease
Retracing a moving object Explaining the cause of disease
Fig. 8. Single-source metaphoric amalgam in ‘He traced my symptoms back to the
cause of my disease’.

The second kind of metaphoric amalgam consists of two source do-

mains that are mapped onto a single target domain. That is the case of
the example in Figure 9 taken from Ruiz the Mendoza/Mairal (2011):
‘He slapped some sense into me’ (He caused me to acquire some
sense by slapping me, i.e. He slapped me and in so doing caused me to
acquire some sense). The two metaphors that operate in the interpreta-
tion of this sentence are AN EFFECTUAL ACTION IS CAUSED-MOTION
and ACQUIRING A PROPERTY IS RECEIVING A MOVING OBJECT. The
two mapping systems merge into one where the effectee (me) is con-
ceptually both an object of the action (seen as the object of caused-
motion) and the receiver of a new property (seen as the moving ob-
ject). Once the attribute of having common sense has been conceptual-
ized as a moving object, it is seen as if entering the person who
thereby becomes both a recipient and a potential possessor of the ob-
ject (provided the person wants to keep the object). The combination
of these two metaphors supplies the range of meaning implications
captured by the paraphrase above.
164 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

SOURCE å TARGET ä SOURCE

Effector (‘he’)
Causer of motion Effecting (‘caused to acquire’)
Destination of motion Effectee (‘me’) New possessor of
an object
Object of caused-motion The new property of ‘having
(moving object) some sense’
Resultant state (acquiring the new Gaining possession
property of having some sense) of an object
Manner of causing Manner of effecting (slapping)
motion
Fig. 9. Double-source metaphoric amalgam in ‘He slapped some sense into me’.

These examples of metaphoric amalgam show the ways in which the

integration of the internal structure of two metaphors acts as the regu-
lating factor for lexical-constructional integration. Let us now focus
on the core of our proposal, namely the kind of metaphoric complex
that typically licenses the fusion of the conceptual representations that
arise from verbs and the prepositional or adverbial particles with
which they combine.

3. Metaphoric chains

3.1 Preliminary considerations

In this section we aim to demonstrate the existence of a third type of

metaphoric complex, which arises from our data in connection to the
analysis of phrasal verbs: metaphoric chains. In this kind of complex,
unlike in others, there is no full integration of metaphoric structure but
rather the cognitive exploitation of a single conceptual domain as both
a metaphoric target and a metaphoric source. Consider, for instance,
example (2) below:

(2) Helen and Edward broke away as soon as was decently

possible (BNC_G0Y_655).
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 165

The starting point of the metaphoric chain in (2) is given by the verb
break: an object becomes fragmented into two or more parts as a re-
sult of force. This first source domain is mapped onto a target domain
in which two or more entities (two people, a person and an institution,
etc.) physically separate from each other. Then we need a second
mapping that converts this target domain into the source domain of a
metaphor whose target domain is social or institutional separation,
namely divorce, secession, etc., which of course usually (but not nec-
essarily) involves physical separation too. The mapping from physical
to institutional separation is thus grounded in experience. In fact, we
may contend that the experiential grounding that underlies this meta-
phoric mapping is a condition sine qua non for the metaphoric con-
nection to be possible. The metaphoric chain is schematized in Figure
10 below:

SOURCE TARGET/SOURCE TARGET

An object
becomes fragmented Two people separate Non-physical
and the fragments physically separation
are scattered

Fig. 10. Metaphoric chain in ‘broke away’.

This pattern, which will be present throughout our analysis of phrasal

verbs, can be schematized as follows (see Figure 11):

SOURCE TARGET/ TARGET

SOURCE

Fig. 11. Metaphoric chain.

In addition, we have been able to identify more complex patterns of

interaction in which a metonymy is built into the layout of a meta-
phoric amalgam. This process takes place when the incorporation of a
metonymy into one of the components of the metaphoric amalgam is
166 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

necessary for a fully-fledged interpretation. This kind of complex fol-

lows the pattern of two different source domains that are mapped onto a
single target domain, into which the metonymy is built. This case will
be addressed in Section 4 in the light of examples like He burst into
tears, in which a metaphoric amalgam and metaphtonymy combine. We
have also dealt with metaphoric chains in which the target domain of
the first metaphor needs to be metonymically expanded in order to be
subsequently mapped onto the following target domain as in ‘I’m fed up
with the cat this morning’, which will also be discussed in detail in Sec-
tion 3.2. In what follows, we will be able to see the complexity of the
patterns that underlie phrasal verb interpretation.6

3.2. Towards a cognitive analysis of phrasal verbs

We are going to focus our attention on those phrasal verbs whose un-
derstanding relies on metaphoric chains. However, we will also make
further considerations that may enlighten our proposal. Let us analyze
example (3) below:

(3) He broke down and cried when we talked to him about it

(BNC_A4K_625).

Break down in (3) suggests emotional distress. This meaning implica-

tion arises from understanding psychological dysfunctionality in terms
of physical dysfunctionality, which, in turn is understood in terms of
physical fragmentation. In other words, in the first metaphoric source
we have an object that becomes physically fragmented and thereby
dysfunctional (as in examples like The clay image fell down and broke
down into pieces). Often, people drop objects that they no longer want
or if an object drops it may become damaged and lose its functional-
ity. The first source domain is mapped onto a target where we have an

6 Such complexity is not necessarily restricted to the understanding of idiomatic

expressions regarding mental states and emotions, as has been suggested by
some authors (Kreuz/Graesser 1991; Eizaga 2002, 2008). Cf. in this regard,
Galera (2010a).
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 167

object that no longer works despite its physical integrity (cf. My car
broke down). Thus, a dysfunctional object is conceptualized as if it
were an object that has been fragmented into pieces. A second meta-
phor that takes this target domain as its source domain maps the dys-
functional object onto an emotionally dysfunctional person who loses
control over himself. We may represent this chain as follows:

SOURCE TARGET/SOURCE TARGET

Physical A person who is

fragmentation An object becomes emotionally distressed
leads to loss of dysfunctional loses control over
functionality himself

Fig. 12. Metonymic integration within a metaphoric chain in ‘He broke down and cried’.

The mapping from physical fragmentation to emotional disruption is

part of the metaphor THE EMOTIONAL SELF IS A (BRITTLE) OBJECT,
which further exploits the complex system labeled by Lakoff (1996)
the DIVIDED SELF metaphor (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza 1998, for further
discussion of this metaphor). Lakoff claims that the subject – which
represents the experiencing consciousness – and the self – which
represents emotions and physical aspects – must be held together. The
separation of subject and self leads to loss of control. Doing psycho-
logical harm to a person is seen as breaking the emotional self of the
person into pieces; conversely, restoring the psychological health of a
person is putting the pieces back together. The DIVIDED SELF meta-
phor is also present in other metaphorical mappings that underlie the
interpretation of other phrasal verbs. This is the case, for instance, of
the expression He just fell apart after her death. The source domain of
this metaphor, which is cued by the linguistic expression, contains the
action of falling, which means moving downward involuntarily. The
adverb apart adds further implications to the source domain: lack of
physical integrity. Therefore, the idea of falling down is conceptually
enriched by the word apart, since an object falling does not always end
up as a broken object. Thus, in the source domain we find a case of
conceptual integration by enrichment, defined in Peña (2003) as the
168 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

combination of two or more conceptual structures, one of them being

subsidiary to the other (cf. also Ruiz de Mendoza 2008, 2011). Concep-
tual integration by enrichment contrasts with conceptual integration by
combination, in which the integrated concepts are at the same level, that
is, none of them is subsidiary to the other. The same rationale holds for
the interpretation of break down in examples (4) to (6) below:

(4) All of a sudden, she whined something about me not know-

ing what I had done and she broke down into tears
(BNC_G15_3370).
(5) Then he was touched on the head by a rebirther and broke
down into uncontrollable sobs (BNC_A48_158).
(6) At that point, she broke down into laughter; low, wild
laughter, that could be heard in the rooms above
(BNC_CD2_120).

In the light of these examples we may contend that there is an under-

lying cause-consequence pattern shared by all of them: first, there is a
process in which the person loses control over himself/herself; as a
consequence of this loss of control, the person shows signs of an un-
controllable emotion, namely crying in (4) and (5) and laughing in the
case of example (6). This process-result sequence resembles that of
the resultative construction (see Goldberg 1995, 2006 for a detailed
account of this construction). The basic structure of this construction
follows the pattern X CAUSES Y TO BECOME Z, in which an action (X
CAUSES Y) results in a change of state (TO BECOME Z). This is the case
of examples like ‘The blacksmith hammered the metal flat’: the black-
smith (X) works in such a way on the metal (process) that the metal
becomes flat (result). We may also find cases in which a process sub-
stitutes for the action, as we can see in examples like The lake froze
solid, in which froze constitutes the process and solid is the result.
Back to examples (3) to (6), we also observe that the result (cry-
ing/laughing) is expressed literally in (3) (and cried) and metaphori-
cally in (4)-(6) (into tears, into uncontrollable sobs and into laughter
respectively). Therefore, different constructional configurations give
rise to different cognitive operations in the interpretation of (3), on the
one hand, and (4), (5), and (6) on the other hand. Let us see each of
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 169

them in turn. Example (3) He broke down and cried codes an event
sequence in which he broke down constitutes event 1 and cried consti-
tutes event 2. In accordance with the LCM, we may contend that ‘and’
does not only code addition, but also links these two events in a way
in which one happens immediately after and as a consequence of the
other. That is, the conjunction ‘and’ is indicative of both a temporal
and a cause-consequence relation. This phenomenon is explained in
terms of cued inferencing, which allows the recovery of non-explicit
information on the part of the hearer at any level of meaning construc-
tion (cf. Mairal/Ruiz de Mendoza 2009). Example (4) – and also (5)
and (6) – calls for a different analysis despite the similarity of the final
interpretation (the meaning of ‘He broke down and cried’ clearly par-
allels the meaning of ‘He broke down into tears’). The constructional
configuration of (4) is not that of two separate events that occur in a
temporal sequence of immediateness, but rather that of an object that
moves along a path towards a destination, that is, the caused-motion
construction (cf. Goldberg 1995, 2006). Thus, this construction li-
censes the reinterpretation of a resultative event as an activity of
metaphorical motion along a path. In addition, the destination of this
metaphorical path, which maps onto emotional states, takes the figura-
tive form of a container. The emotions in the target, namely sorrow or
happiness, are accessed through the metonymy CONSEQUENCE FOR
CAUSE (tears stand for sorrow in (4), laughter for happiness in (6)).
Therefore, the container image-schema is built into the destination slot
of the path schema thus allowing us to see emotional states as contain-
ers and the development of a given emotion (which is a change of
state) as going into the container. This is another case of conceptual
integration by enrichment.
Our next pair of examples shows that the same combination
verb+adverb may give rise to different interpretations. In this respect,
consider (7) and (8) below:

(7) Steve wouldn’t give him away. (BNC_HNJ_422).

(8) Her father, who gave her away, was thrilled. (BNC_
ECM_1334).
170 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

The first metaphoric process that arises from the interpretation of ex-
ample (7) has as its source domain a situation in which someone gets
rid of an object by giving it to someone else. The possessor of the ob-
ject decides to donate it to whoever wants to take it, thus losing con-
trol, benefits and responsibility over the object. The source is mapped
onto another situation where someone gets rid of a person in a similar
manner; the person who is given away develops negative feelings to-
wards the person who has given him/her away as if he/she were an
unwanted object. This pragmatic implication licenses the second map-
ping, a situation in which a person is betrayed and thus dispensed with
as if actually given away. This process is schematized in Figure 13:

SOURCE TARGET/SOURCE TARGET

Getting rid of Getting rid of Betraying

an object a person a person

Fig. 13. Metaphoric chain in ‘give away’

Example (8) calls for a different analysis. In this case, the source of
the first metaphoric mapping is the same, but in the target/source do-
main we find that the person we are getting rid of is conventionally
determined by the linguistic expression, that is, this person must be a
bride. Furthermore, the giver, in this case, is the one who walks the
bride down the aisle at the beginning of the marriage ceremony, gen-
erally her father. In the past, it was assumed that the father was the
person to keep the guardianship of his daughter until the moment in
which she would get married, when this responsibility was transferred
to the husband. Thus, the father does not get rid of his daughter in a
strict sense (the sense of giving an object with which we have no emo-
tional ties to whoever will take it). Rather, he accepts the husband to
carry on with the responsibility of taking care of his beloved daughter.
These considerations about the first target domain constrain the choice
of the first source domain; that is, we need to adjust the source domain
in order to get the most suitable correspondence between source and
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 171

target. This takes place in application of what, in terms of the LCM,

we refer to as the Correlation Principle, as originally formulated by
Ruiz de Mendoza and Santibáñez (2003) (cf. also Ruiz de Mendoza
2011). According to this principle, speakers strive to select the best
source domain or source domain elements in terms of the implica-
tional structure of the target. The object in the source domain must
thus be one that has a certain emotional value for the giver, who
would not just get rid of it. Furthermore, the bad feelings the person
given away had towards the giver are not present in this particular
example, so the second mapping does not take place. Note that tradi-
tional values that regarded women as a property (first of her father and
later of her husband) are nowadays present in language and constrain
the interpretation of the same sentence depending on whether we are
talking about a man or a woman. This is the case for instance in He
was given away by his mother, in which the preferred interpretation
would not be that the mother walked his son down the aisle, but rather
that she betrayed him.
Our next example, briefly mentioned in the introduction, is I’m
fed up with the cat this morning. The most basic orientational meta-
phor that underlies this expression is FULL IS UP, which is grounded in
experience7. In this case, the metaphor FULL IS UP is combined with
the container image-schema THE HUMAN BODY IS A CONTAINER, that
is, the human body is seen as a container that is gradually filled with
food. The expression to be fed up firstly evokes the feeling that a per-
son has when he/she has eaten a lot, that is, the person is filled to the
top with food. The target domain of this non-situational (image-
schematic) metaphor8 constitutes the source of a situational metaphor,
which needs to be metonymically expanded onto a more complex
situation in which a person who has been eating a lot is beginning to
feel sick and cannot eat more. The result of this metonymic expansion
is metaphorically mapped onto a situation in which a person cannot

7 Some cognitive linguists (e.g. Taylor 1995; Barcelona 2000) argue that this
metaphor has a metonymic grounding: UP STANDS FOR FULL.
8 Cf. Ruiz de Mendoza/Díez (2002) and Ruiz de Mendoza/Pérez (2011) for a
detailed account of metaphor types.
172 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

stand someone else’s behaviour anymore. This process is schematized

in Figure 14 below:

SOURCE TARGET/SOURCE TARGET

To be in a situation To be in a situation
in which one cannot have in which one cannot
more food or will get sick stand someone else’s
behavior
Metonymy

To be fed up To be filled
FULL IS UP with food
+
THE HUMAN BODY IS A CONTAINER

Fig. 14. Metaphoric chain in ‘I’m fed up with the cat this morning’.

4. Metaphtonymy and metaphoric amalgams in interaction

The aim of this section is to provide a flavor of the degree of complex-

ity that cognitive mechanisms underlying phrasal verb interpretation
may reach. We have already accounted for the often disregarded pat-
terns of interaction between metaphor and metonymy, but our next
example suggests that even complex cases of interaction such as
metaphtonymy and metaphoric amalgams may combine with each
other. Consider the following expressions:

(9) He burst into the room.

(10) Still pinned to the floor I was about to burst into tears of
frustration when I was suddenly released
(BNC_ASN_325).

In example (9) there is a single metaphoric mapping in whose source

domain there is a physical explosion, as cued by the linguistic expres-
sion (burst). The physical explosion is then mapped onto emotional
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 173

disruption in the target domain. This metaphoric mapping is comple-

mented by the metonymy MANNER FOR ACTION (Peña 2008), so the
manner of motion (bursting) stands for motion (getting into the room).
In the case of (10) we find a more complex pattern: two source do-
mains are mapped onto the same target domain, as in Ruiz de Men-
doza’s metaphoric complexes. Two metaphors operate in combina-
tion: EMOTIONAL DAMAGE IS PHYSICAL DAMAGE + EMOTIONAL DAM-
AGE IS MOTION. The process of experiencing emotional damage is
conceptualized both as suffering physical damage and as motion along
a path. In addition, the source and destination of motion correspond to
the initial and final emotional states respectively (from the moment
when the person has not experienced emotional damage to the mo-
ment in which the person has). The EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy
(domain expansion) needs to operate within the target domain in order
to afford access to a plausible interpretation: the tears, which are the
effect of distress, stand for this emotional state. Furthermore, the tar-
get of this metonymy corresponds to the broken pieces element of the
first source domain. As can be seen from this description, metaph-
tonymy and metaphoric amalgam interact in the interpretation of this
phrasal verb. These operations are schematized in Figure 15 below:

Source å Target ä Source

(bursting) (change of state) (change of location)
Process of suffering Process of experiencing Motion
physical damage (burst- emotional damage
ing)
Initial state (no emotional Source of motion
damage)
Final state (emotional Destination of motion
damage)

Symptoms of emotional
Broken pieces damage (tears)
Fig. 15. Metaphoric and metonymic complex in ‘burst into tears’.
174 Francisco J. Ruiz De Mendoza Ibáñez & Alicia Galera Masegosa

5. Conclusions

Our study has postulated the existence of metaphoric chains, which

are a kind of metaphoric complex that has shown to be productive in
phrasal verb interpretation. In a metaphoric chain, unlike in other
cases of metaphoric complex studied so far (which we have referred to
as metaphoric amalgams), there is no integration of conceptual struc-
ture but rather a process by virtue of which the target domain of one
metaphor constitutes the source domain of another. Nevertheless, the
integration of other cognitive mechanisms has proved to be necessary
in the interpretation of certain phrasal verbs, as is the case of the DI-
VIDED SELF metaphor, which triggers one of the metaphoric map-
pings in ‘He broke down and cried’ and which also licenses the con-
ceptual integration by enrichment in He fell apart after her death.
Examples like He burst into tears and I’m fed up with the cat
this morning reinforce our claims in the sense that it shows the high
degree of complexity that phrasal verb interpretation may involve: in
the first case, a metaphoric amalgam (two source domains are mapped
onto a single target domain) is further developed by a metonymy that
is integrated into the metaphoric target thus giving rise to a case of
metaphtonymy within a metaphoric complex. In the second, two un-
derlying metaphors (MORE IS UP and THE HUMAN BODY IS A CON-
TAINER) trigger the first metaphoric mapping of the metaphoric chain,
to which we add the metonymic expansion of the first metaphoric
target in order to obtain the source domain of a situational metaphor.
On the basis of an analysis of phrasal verbs, we have shown that
there are more ways in which metaphor and metonymy interact than
had been discussed in the literature. We hope that more research into
phrasal verbs and other linguistic and communicative phenomena
(including multimodal metaphor, as in Urios-Aparisi 2009, and Hi-
dalgo/Kraljevic 2011) will lend further support to our still provisional
proposals and help to refine them.
Metaphoric and Metonymic Complexes in Phrasal Verb Interpretation 175

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